Questions in a World of Blue (there is no 26)

1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME? - Gregory Allen Jerrett

2. WHAT COLOR PANTS ARE YOU WEARING? - olive drab

3. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? - the sound
of a small rotary desk fan, it keeps the voices at bay or Talking Heads

4. WHAT'S THE LAST THING YOU ATE? - a cheeseburger at
BK

5. DO YOU WISH ON STARS? - No

6. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU
BE? - Burnt Sienna

7. HOW IS THE WEATHER RIGHT NOW? - drizzling

8. WHO IS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED ON THE
PHONE WITH? - Sal Mohammed, running for Gov of Iowa

9. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT YOU THIS? -
Less and less with each passing forward. Otherwise yes :)

10. HOW OLD ARE YOU TODAY? - 36

11. FAVORITE DRINK? - Diet Mountain Dew

12. HAIR COLOR? - black like my women and my soul

13. COLOR EYES? - green/hazel

14. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? - No

15. SIBLINGS? - One sister

16. FAVORITE MONTH? - November

17. FAVORITE FOOD? - gyro

18. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? - Hitchhikers Guide to the
Galaxy

19. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR? - Thanksgiving

20. WHAT DO YOU DO TO VENT ANGER? - hate wank or cut
myself

21. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD? - My
plush Pluto

22. SUMMER OR WINTER? - Winter

23. HUGS OR KISSES ? - hugs

24. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? - chocolate

25. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? - DC, ST, CC, PC,
NHG

27. WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? - BG, JCD, MS,
KR, MM, PC, GW

28. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS? - House in CB

29. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? - a half hour
ago

30. WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED? - a towel of mysterious filth
(see 20), a CPAP machine, shoes, dust, a few empty 2 liters

31. WHO IS THE FRIEND YOU HAVE HAD THE LONGEST? -
Mark Schonberg

32. WHAT DID YOU DO LAST NIGHT? - Watched "Action", ate
Triscuits with fontina, cucumber slices, grapes.

33. FAVORITE SMELLS? - The way the ground smells just after it
starts raining lightly, a daVinci's smoked turkey alfredo when it's
delivered hot, the pacific ocean and punani, I think, I can't rememeber

34. WHAT INSPIRES YOU? - My nephew, Air on the G String
(Bach, not a stripper reference)

35. WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? - death, panic attacks, irish,
ultimate failure

36. PLAIN, BUTTERED OR SALTED POPCORN? - plain

37. FAVORITE CAR? - 1972 mustang, red, black interior

38. FAVORITE FLOWER? - Peace lily

39. NUMBER OF KEYS ON YOUR KEY RING? - 11, 9 metal, 1
electronic, 1 church key

40. CAN YOU JUGGLE? - For about 3 seconds

41. FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK? Saturday

42. WHAT DID YOU DO ON YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY? -
dinner at my sisters

43. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? - Mercy Hosp. Council Bluffs
Iowa, 8:59 p.m. 8/15/68

44. HOW MANY STATES HAVE YOU LIVED IN? 2

Democracy yes; aristocracy no

American culture is fascinated with monarchy
and aristocracy. We claim that we are not; at
least those of us with enough history under
our belts to know that America is supposed to
be free of those blights make that claim. But
the evidence around us suggests otherwise.

For example, Americans love their celebrities.
We prize, lionize and canonize men and women
for their ability to bounce big orange balls, drive
Monte Carlos around an ovoid really fast and act,
barely in many cases. In fact, I would say that
celebrity itself is more important than having
something to hang that celebrity on in the first
place. Take Paris Hilton … please. Here is a barely
visible slip of a girl whose most enduring contribution
to the American zeitgeist and broader culture is her
inability to keep her tiny pants and even smaller
skirts pulled above her gluteal divide. Her amateur
film career, though even less remarkable, will no
doubt live on for some time as well. But the thing
about Paris Hilton is that she isn’t really famous
for any greater reason other than being famous.
Her modeling career isn’t anything to gawk at so
much as is her bad behavior. Her intellect is shockingly
stunted, as well. Her little friend, Nicole Ritchie, is
an even greater example of the type. She is apparently
famous only for being friends with Hilton.

As much as we claim to love democracy in America,
we tend to offer up the same benefits to our presidents
as we would otherwise do to kings and queens were we
Europeans. According to my history books, all politicians
are deserving of the exact same constant scorn, ridicule
and watchful public eye-balling. It isn’t personal; it’s
just how real democracy is supposed to work. Watch
the British Prime Minister take questions from
Parliament and you will see how roughly a head
of state should be treated by the legislative branch.

Sports stars are the most baffling of all American
aristos. They play well, get paid great, receive
adulation and admiration in abundance, and many
still can’t behave themselves off the courts, courses
and fields. Those who want to can get away with
crimes far more often than the average man or even
politician. We worship these people and yet we rarely
if ever force them to behave as the role models they
so clearly are by default. They can be outlaws who
get away with anything. Pretty Boy Floyd should have
had it so easy.

With that said, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t fall
apart when meeting celebrities and that includes me.
Hypocrisy is built into the system at all levels and I
won’t claim to be any better, just more aware. The
first celebrity I ever met was Adam West. That was
back in the early ‘70s when “Batman” was in heavy
syndication every day after school. I was thrown onto
the stage with the man in the middle of an auto show
in Omaha. Considering the weight of the moment and
the fullness of my nervous bladder, I’m quite lucky to
have retained my urine.

I got to sit in the same room with Martin Sheen for about
an hour and a half in 2000. He was schilling for “The West
Wing” at a journalism convention at the Marriott Marquis
in Times Square. He talked at length about how he
perceived the role and chatted with the audience like a
beloved uncle. He seemed a bit spacey, was very funny
and gracious. Less than 24 hours later, I saw comedian
Patrice O’Neil perform in the same room. It was cool,
but not as heady.

Dennis Miller was one of my best interviews and most
awestruck moments. I didn’t receive a press release
asking me if I’d like to interview the man I considered
my hero for many years. I went looking for it. I talked
to all the right people and set that bad boy up. I’ve still
got the tape somewhere. And yes, he is just as nasty and
condescending as he is on TV. Maybe worse.

New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh walked into
my college newsroom at the Iowa State Daily just like a
normal human being would. The guy who broke the story
about the My Lai massacre is pretty controversial, but
no self-respecting professional journalist can deny it was
a fine piece of reporting, dangerous to do and powerful
in its consequences. He was pretty jet-lagged and more
than a bit put off that no one in the room seemed to know
who he was. What can I say, there are so many hours in
the day to learn how to be a journalist let alone who we as
journalists should be ecstatic to meet IF we ever get that
chance.

I could go on with a list that includes Patty Maloney, Tori
Amos, Paul Begala, Helen Thomas, Arianna Huffington, Roger
Ebert and Dave Attell, but I don’t want to appear to be bragging.
That would undermine my point, which is that celebrities,
while fascinating in their fame, are just people. While we
as individuals might go all aflutter in their presence, we
should never allow ourselves to be swayed rationally by
their whims. We shouldn’t vote football coaches, actors
and super models into political office just ‘cause we know
their names and what they look like. We should not be any
more inclined to give credence to a Rob Reiner, George
Clooney or Arnold Scwarzennegger because they made us
laugh at their antics in a film or on TV. Our legal system
should not give third and fourth chances to anyone who would
be deemed a career criminal or a hopeless addict if it weren’t
for the fact that millions see them doing their jobs.

Celebrities are not necessarily good or bad on their own,
but the culture we as worshipful plebeians create around
them is decidedly bad.

Granpa in Missouri

I have needed to do this for some time.

My great grandfather was Lester LaMiller of Lebanon, Mo.
For short, and to cut down on confusion, my sister and cousins
and I used to refer to him as Granpa inMissouri. To his face,
I always called him Great Grandfather much to the amusement
of my mother and any other adults who found the full use of
the term strangely formal. I felt it only appropriate that someone
who had earned the term "Great" be addressed as such.

Lester LaMiller, Granpa in Missouri, Great Grandfather
was 98 years old when he died in a state-run nursing home.
His only worldly possession that I am aware of was a .22 caliber pen
gun he kept in his shirt pocket until his final day. It was a relic from
another time just like him. It wasn't so much of a toy or a novelty,
but a necessity. My mother has a picture of him in the nursing home
that clearly shows the pen in its place. No one ever knew he had it.

My Great Grandfather was a squatter for most of his life. I am
not sure what he did in his younger days for a living, but I know
he was a twin. I know he had a wife and two daughters who were
also twins. I know that one day, they were in a car accident
and all three of the people who made up his world died and left him
so alone that it never seemed to matter to him what his life became so long
as he was buried next to his wife. We would go and visit him once a year
and park our camper on the territory he had managed to secure for
himself right on the highway outside of Lebanon. How he managed
to live there for any length of time amazes me now, but seemed only
appropriate back then. He was never a particularly unhappy person.
He could chase my sister and my cousin around his shanty wielding his
false teeth and screaming like a madman He came from a stock of people
who survived some of the worst deprivations known to Americans during
the Great Depression. Being alive and having enough food to eat under a
roof that didn't leak too bad was all right with him. What did it matter if
his shack smelled of urine and his clothes were never clean? Once, my mother
took his shoes off to wash his feet and found maggots between his toes.
It broke her heart to see him living like that and she would have done
anything to bring him back with us to Iowa, but he couldn't leave his
wife. So long as he was in Missouri, he believed that he would one day
be reunited with her. Heaven for him was knowing that he wasn't
leaving her alone.

Granpa in Missouri lived in a shotgun shack until he was 97, but he
apparently had nearly 20 grand hidden in that shack. He could very
easily have found some kind of accommodation that would have kept him
safe and comfortable without breaking his bank. But nothing doing.
I think what my mother couldn't quite understand was how he could
choose to live like that. She understood his desire to not leave Missouri
on account of his wife and children. We visited their graves every year
by a beautiful white church in the hills surrounded by trees. It was cool
and inviting. I wouldn't mind being buried there myself if I weren't so
inclined toward cremation. What my mother couldn't understand was
how any man would live in his own filth, mired in his own scent, surrounded
by the detritus of a lifetime. To him, it must have been a package deal. I
think there must have been some guilt for living for so long after they
died. He wasn't inclined to take his life, but he was able to spend
his life in poverty, alone, waiting for the end. It seemed to satisfy some
kind of secret condition he set. He would live. He wouldn't remarry or even
seek a better life. And when the end came, he could be buried next to
his wife and children. All debts paid.

Of course, this is largely speculation on my part. I was pretty observant
for a 10 year old, but I was still a 10 year old. I don't recall any testimony
or bits of conversation to that effect.

The greatest disservice I ever did to my Great Grandfather was when he
died and I was given the option not to go to his funeral. I took it. I think
my mother would have preferred that my sister and I stay home, which
is why she offered the option. It might also have been because she knew how badly
I reacted to death, fuerals and hospitals. I wish I had gone now regardless of how
hard it might have been. I would like to be able to think back now and remember
with some satisfaction how complete a man's life can be, not just when he lives well,
but when he gets the only thing he ever really wanted out of life, to be with his wife
in death. I would have liked to see him buried in that country graveyard with the
shade trees by the little white church that was just as beautiful if the sun shined or
cloudy skies drizzled on us like quiet tears.

Real news only comes from England apparently

runaway bride, michael jackson? Yeah, they were in the
news this weekend, but not this. Thanks English press
for being the real deal

http://www.rawstory.com/aexternal/conyers_iraq_letter_502

Blair hit by new leak of secret war plan

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1592904-523,00.html

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Why is the world so full of fuckers?

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How you got here and what you thought you would find

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Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy uneven, but fun

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the
unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm
of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow
sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly
98 million miles is an utterly insignificant
little blue-green planet whose ape-descended
life forms are so amazingly primitive that
they still think digital watches are a pretty
neat idea.”

So begins the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy” and many a junior high schooler and
comic book store guy has quoted, guffawed and
shared these clever words featured in print,
radio and TV for the better part of 30 years.
It was a series destined for the big screen
20 years ago, why it took until 2005 to get
there is a mystery.

Here’s what the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy” has to say about film adaptations.
Movies based on books, radio programs and
television shows are predetermined to deviate
significantly from their source material. It is
widely believed that it would be impossible to
accurately reproduce a great work of literary
comedy with any exactitude, so why not just scrap
the original and do a movie “based on” it with
some gratuitous violence and sight gags thrown
in to boot.

It’s a rationalization mostly. Most studios
operate on the lowest common denominator principle
of filmmaking, which states that no matter how
successful or great a book might be, it is either
too simple or too complex for the silver screen
and must be touched up. This allows them to throw
a gun, some explosions, a bit of romance, a few
moral lessons and a lot of action into an otherwise
great work of pop philosophy.
Well, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is in
theaters now and in spite of some very obvious
messing about with Douglas Adams brilliant original
script, it manages to capture the essence of the
book and TV version quite well. Now, in the world
I inhabit, which is filled with sci fi geeks, gamers
and bookworms, HHGTTG is a classic trilogy (of six
or seven books) that everyone knows and read several
times.
In the real world, a great many normal people have
probably never heard of Douglas Adams, his books or
his genius. That doesn’t mean they aren’t well read,
it just means they probably aren’t anglophiles, PBS
snobs or geeks. This book fits right in with the D&D
crowd, Monty Python and Dr. Who.

HHGTTG is the story of a very English Earthman named
Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman “The Office,” “Love
Actually,” “Shaun of the Dead”) who is suddenly taken
out of his very comfortable world by the destruction
of said world. Dent finds himself out in a big galaxy
where everything is much weirder than it is on Earth,
but much funnier as well.

Arthur Dent is immediately picked up by the President
of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, who has just kidnapped
himself as is being violently pursued for his own
protection by the Vogons, an unpleasant race of
creatures and the Galaxy’s petty bureaucrats.

Zaphod is traveling with Trillian, a girl Arthur
once met a party and failed miserably to get on
with. Zaphod picked her up deftly with a classic
line, “Is this guy boring you? Why don’t you come
with me, I’m from a different planet?” Zaphod
flies the spaceship Heart of Gold, powered by an
improbability drive, which he stole while kidnapping
himself. Now he’s looking for the legendary planet
Magrathea where the ultimate question to life, the
universe and everything can be found. The answer
is 42, but it doesn’t mean anything because no one
knows the question.
Now, the thing about the books and TV shows that
made this film possible, is that the plot was
pretty simple and nothing was sacred or taken
seriously for long if it was. All is folly; life
is wonderful if we don’t get too morbid, so let’s
have a bit of fun. That’s what HHGTTG is really
all about.

Mostly, these characters just got into a great
many situations where the talking about things
was the most entertaining aspect. Why build a
robot with a brain the size of a planet if all
you have him do is fetch people and things? Are
digital watches really all that fascinating?
When you think about it, aren’t dolphins really
the smartest creatures on Earth?

The film takes a different route than Adams would
have taken if he hadn’t died, much to everyone’s
dismay including his own, in 2001. This script
had the one thing Douglas Adams didn’t need: help
from another screenwriter. In this case, that
screenwriter is Karey Kirkpatrick, auteur of
such gem classics as “The Little Vampire,” “Honey,
We Shrunk Ourselves” and “Chicken Run.” Granted,
these are all fine films brilliantly written and
executed, but Kirkpatrick’s additions to HHGTTG
add nothing and distract greatly from Adam’s
dialogue. One need not be a linguist to notice
the palpable difference between Adams’ rich
dialogue and Kirkpatrick’s flatter than flat blurbs.

Luckily, 60 percent of HHGTTG is not only the original
Adams script, it is brilliantly performed with
loving attention by some of today’s finest British
comedic actors (Stephen Fry, Helen Mirren,
Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Steve Pemberton)
as well as a good number of American actors
who really seem to get it (John Malkovich,
Mos Def, Sam Rockwell and Jason Schwartzman).

Just as “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy depended
on its massive cult following for its success,
HHGTTG is going to be a make or break proposition
based on the countless fans of the original who
will either be delighted by the adaptation or
appalled by every little change. To most of them,
this film will be about a B+.

For the average Joe, HHGTTG is a mild and chaotic
romp of uneven scenes based on some kind of inside
joke they weren’t privy to in the first place. They
will find the comedy weird and alien, kind of cute
in places with a satisfying Hollywood ending.

Jacko and the media, there are no surprises left

There are a lot of things I don’t quite
get in this world. Why would anyone put
pineapple on a pizza? Why does MTV never
show videos any more? Why put up an endless
string of road construction cones along 30
when there isn’t a road crew in sight? If
Jesus was a carpenter, how much did he charge
for a bookshelf? Is true love possible? Cats.
But if there is one thing that tops my list
of brain teasers it’s why anyone has a hard
time coming to terms with King of Pop Michael
Jackson’s weirdness. In years past, I’ve made
mention of Michael Jackson. Some mentions have
been harsher than others, but mostly they were
all designed to get some laughs while shedding
a little light. Even considering the nature of
his alleged crimes, one cannot allow oneself
to get too overwrought by them. Everyone should
have seen what was coming from far, far away.

Here’s the rub for me though. I like to check
the headline each day on My Yahoo! It’s got AP,
Reuters, national, world, politics, technology
and entertainment news. I find entertainment
stories to be the most refreshingly stupid
stories I’ve ever read. The headlines don’t
fail to draw my attention with their shocking
revelations about people in the one area of
American culture where every form of perversion
and human debasement has occurred at least on
film if not at Roman Polanski’s house. Why
pretend shock? It’s all for us. So let’s
check it out.

My favorite E! Entertainment headline from
this week was the delightfully understated
faux shocked sentiment in “Michael Jackson
a ‘Sociopath?’” Apparently, there is some
debate in his current trial over whether
or not the woman he paid to bear his children
called him a sociopath, whether he might be
one, whether that term means anything since
she isn’t an expert and has since called him
a genius and wonderful father or if we should
all just acknowledge that sociopaths are a
dime a dozen these days, as I will show in a bit.

Now, I remember about 10 years ago when Michael
was trying to buy the Elephant Man’s bones. He
wanted to “take care of him.” It was about 5
percent sweet and 150 percent creepy. It was
around the same time he was pictured sleeping
in an oxygen tent with his monkey or something
to stay young forever. Early signs, that’s all
it was.

Monkey business aside, the bones thing freaked
me out. The guy had been hanging out with little
kids for some time and everyone thought it was
cute. But I was pretty sure at that point that
Michael Jackson might be a good deal weirder
than any of us had previously considered or
discussed in the media. Oh sure, in England
they started calling him Wacko Jacko as soon
as it was possible, but their tabloid press
is full of savages who find no level of public
discourse too base or vulgar for public
consumption.

I had friends, no doubt “Thriller” fans, who
thought I was far off the mark suggesting
that Michael Jackson might, just possibly,
be a bad, bad man. It’s all about the signs
and portents after all. Today, if the charges
prove correct, few would disagree that his
actions warrant such acrimony.

But at what point in the last 10 years could
anyone have doubted that the man was a
sociopath? Sure, it sounds like a harsh judgment,
but in a world where we can see deadly sins on
TV and even pay good legal tender for a few of
them, sociopaths are not exactly hard to come
by, are they? The term “sociopath” sounds bad,
but if you take a look at what one really is,
it could be the person sitting next to you.
Don’t look now. Wait until their back is turned.
Culling knowledge from my years of watching
“Law & Order,” a couple of community college
abnormal psyche classes and a quick trip to
MedicineNet, I can tell you that a sociopath
is someone with antisocial personality disorder.

That’s a mild way to say they disregard the
rights of others and are unwilling to conform
to the norms of society. That’s most teenagers
and outlaw bikers right there.

There is usually a history of antisocial behavior
starting before 15 that just keeps on going into
the adult years. Sociopaths do bad things more
often than we normal people but they can’t be
dissuaded by consequences. They usually are
irresponsible academic failures with poor
job performance records who do crimes, take
chances and act on impulse. Not too bizarre
yet let alone King of Popish.

Here’s where we see Jacko though. In addition
to being unable to stand boredom, a sociopath
usually feels victimized; their personality
will bring them into conflict with society
because of a pattern of amoral and unethical
behavior.

They might be contemptuous of those who try
to understand them. They won’t perceive that
anything is wrong with them. They are
authoritarian (or their entourage is). They
might be secretive, paranoid, extremely narcissistic
and grandiose. They are unable to feel remorse or
guilt. They are looking for approval and admiration
while controlling those they abuse. They justify
their crimes, are emotionally needy, incapable of
real human attachments and may actually say they’d
like to rule the world.

Maintaining a conventional appearance is on the
list too, but I think we are pretty aware that
Jacko totally lost control of his normal appearance
after the first few surgeries.

But hey, we can’t all be perfect sociopaths.

Operation Secret Eck-STRAC-shun

Todd Fox, the only picture
I could find.

[For an update on this ongoing saga, read this post.]

The whole situation was fucked up so bad from the very
beginning that any amount of money I "owed" later on
was really irrelevant to how messed up things had gotten
and why I felt it easier to fuck off the way I did.


Here's the story from the beginning:

I hadn't talked to Todd Fox for several years. He
thought he was cool... finally... after years of
sucking on my dry teats pretending that hanging out
with me made him cool. I never understood why he
thought I was cool back in junior high and high school.

I understand why some guys I know do,
but they aren't interested in being MTV rock stars.
That 'mo wanted to be cool like that.

So of course he eventually began to resent me in later
years for HIS having thought I was cool. It's kind of
a trend I've noticed. It's like finding out that Mel
Gibson is nuts or that Dennis Miller is so greedy
that he threw over being a hardcore fighting liberal
to be a Neocon chickenhawk pussy. It makes you hate
them and part of that is because you used to love them
and feel betrayed. Even though they never did anything
to me, owe me nothing, I feel betrayed. That is Todd
Fox in a nutshell.

He even borrowed about 20 bucks from me and my Mighty
Lemondrops tape just so he could "dump me" like a
bitch the summer after I graduated ISU. I had no money
that summer and he never managed to see me a second time
or pay me back in spite of the fact that he had a job and I didn't.
It would be just like him to do something like that so he could feel
superior and up one.

Fast forward a few years and he is calling me from
Hunstville, Alabama. His mommy got him a job at Boeing
probably by blowing some guy she knew that worked there
named Charlie. This might have been partly why his parents divorced
later. In any case, Todd was a very lonely boy because all
the dorks he hung out with in college didn't think he
was cool enough to stay in touch with later. So he actually
fucking called me up out of the blue one cold winter night to
apologize for not having been a very good friend.

I would have said, hey that's great I accept your
apology, it takes a big man to know when he's wrong,
now please piss off and never contact me again. But
the fucker caught me off guard so I just said OK and
let him feel unjustifiably relieved and back in my
good graces.

This was back in 92 when e-mail was just coming on so we
e-mailed a lot and even played an RPG that
was of my design. You'd dig it. It was just a bunch of
totally made up bullshit. We were time cops (just like
that fucking cartoon only years ahead). I conceived
it as being something like the Restaurant at the End
of the Universe though. Lots of people on a big space
station in orbit over a huge black hole looking time
vortex where time travelers from all over the
multiverse could get together and converse, but when
someone tried fucking with history, we would go back in
time to set things right.

A couple years after that, I was pretty much done with
grad school. It sucked, I wasn't getting anywhere, my
prof was a bitch who didn't want to work with me so
Todd said I should go down to Houston with him when he
got transferred because it was "a boomtown" and I could
"easily get a job down there." His real motive was he was lonely,
no one thought he was cool and he needed a friend or at least an audience.

It's like this: If a poser tree thinks it's cool in the
forest and no one is around to oo and aw at it, can it still be
delusional?

So I moved down there. I had about 300 bucks, no car and we didn't
even live near a busline. We had to have an apartment by the lake
though so poserboy could feel cool. Whoohoo.
There weren't even sidewalks in front of the apartment.

Houston is a shithole considering it is the fourth largest city in the U.S.,
it has no mass transit outside the central district.
You can commute to downtown for over a 100 bucks a
month. If you don't have a car in Texas, you are screwed.

I found a job driving a cab which paid pretty good and solved a lot of my problems, but
that didn't last because these hayseeds were a vicious
and brutal lot who "let me go" one night because
they brought back an alcoholic they fired two weeks
earlier. They replaced him with a woman and they didn't
want to get rid of her because she lived in the
trailer park the cab co. owners ran so if she couldn't
pay the rent it would have been half their fault.

It was at this exact same time that Todd told me when
our 6 month lease was up, he was moving in with his
girlfriend. I was fucked of course and pretty pissed
off. It cost me about 1500 total to rent moving vans to
and from Houston not to mention paying the rent and
bills that Todd had originally said I wouldn't have to
worry about paying until I got a job because he was
making so much money at Boeing (14 an hour plus 65
per diem and perks out the ass) that it wouldn't be any
different than when he was living in his own two bedroom
apt. in Huntsville, Alab. by himself.

He was so relieved that I didn't get pissed off at him
for bailing on me and our plan to start a comic
book/game store (the main carrot for moving down there)
that he pretty much felt content to go about his business
guilt free.

Meanwhile ...

I kept a cool facade, but I was shitting myself. I had saved
up a lot of money driving the cab 12 hours a day 6 days a
week, but that money was going pretty quick. I had
about 600 left after paying rent and utilities. With 6 weeks on
our lease, I had no intention of sticking it out just so I could
be homeless in Houston while Todd got to go off happy as
Larry after fucking me.

My honor system doesn't include paying dicks
for being dicks. I consider that asshole tax, man.

I had a couple weeks before the next rent was due and
wanted to leave before that. Enter Mark Schonberg.
Just by pure luck, his wife, Kum Ju, was in Korea, he
had all the time in the world down in Kansas and a love for
adventure. Most people would balk, but not Schonberg.
This was his literal definition of friendship. Any number of times,
Schonberg would tell me and anyone who'd listen that a real friend
is someone who'd drive down to Mexico to bail you out of jail.
This was basically the same thing or at least as close as he is
likely to get until I actually go to Mexico one day and get arrested.

He still had his doubts. I told him I would pay him back
for renting the van if he would get it in Kansas or Omaha
and drive down to Houston. I found out later, he honestly
didn't think I was going to be able to pay him right there and then.
It wasn't clear if he thought I was planning on dicking him
or if he just thought I was kidding myself, but I most certainly
did intend to pay him with the last of my cash. I appreciated his
willingness to help me out in spite of his doubts, but I was a
little offended. Only because I would have told him I didn't have
any money and asked for help like a proper beggar should.
I am not that big of a scumbag, after all.

So Mark is slated to show up on a Friday in February. Todd usually
came home after work just long enough to pack some
rubbers and then spend the weekend on his bitchy
but hot girlfriend, Pam, the red-headed Alabama skanksnake.
The other roommate, Catfucker Jim, was an
alkie and went to the bar and got absolutely tore up
every Friday. I figgered, if Schonberg showed up by
noon, which was his plan. We could pack up the van and
fuck off before anyone noticed.

What happened was, he overestimated his endurance a
bit and showed up around 4:30. He made good time, but
that was a real bad time to show up. So we went out,
got a burger, hit the bookstore, saw a few sites and
went home when we saw that Todd and Catfucker's cars
were gone. Everything was packed in boxes, we had a
dolly, it took 20 minutes. It was beautiful. The best move ever.
Then we got faced at Croc's right across the street.
$1 shots of tequila. How good is that? Mark confessed
to me that he liked hentai that night.

We hit the rack about midnight, got woke up at 2:30 by old
Catfucker tripping over a lamp. Woke up at 5, grabbed
our pillows and blankets and hit the open road without so
much as a HEY WHERE'RE YOU GOING? To which the answer
would have been, "out to breakfast. See ya later!"

Now, the "Operation Secret Extraction" bit comes in to
play the day before we took off. We were going to keep
this secret because we didn't want a hassle when we
tried to move shit out. That's a bad scene. I knew
we'd have plenty of time on Friday to move without
hindrance so all we had to do was time things so that
even if Mark was seen arriving, everyone thought it was just
for a visit. Then all we would need was a half hour
window and no one would be able to say shit.

So even knowing that he just needs to just keep his mouth shut,
Schonberg calls me up on Thursday to tell me he is on his way and
rather than just say on the answering machine, oh,
nothing, or "Hey Greg it's Mark. Everything is cool with
me, just thought I'd call to say 'see you soon, buddy.'"
He decides that he need to be cryptic. To him, that meant
saying "Greg, this is Mark. Operation Secret Extraction is under way."

Now talk about FUCKING OBVIOUS. Anyone with an IQ
over 68 could figure it out and both of my roommates, though dicks,
were ROCKET SCIENTISTS. Todd certainly would have figured it out
had he heard it. Catfucker heard it and asked me what
it meant. I told him Mark was in the army and liked to
talk like that because he is one of those gungho gamer
closet fags who gets turned on by that sort of shit.
What else COULD I say if I had any hope of fooling
him? As it is, I can't believe ANYTHING worked.

I think CF figgered it out and couldn't wait for the fallout.
He is one of those guys who really fucks his friends
over with evil intention. He hit on Todd's girlfriend
once right before she picked Todd over him and rather than get
over it or just fuck off, he tried to play Roman
intrigue. He even suggested to me after Todd told me
he was moving out, "Boy if it were me, I'd have to get back
at him in some really fucked up way."

Really Catfucker? Like by fucking his cats or
something? Like anyone needs to be reminded that
revenge is an option.

So he probably thought all of this intrigue was of his
making instead of being just about the only thing I
could possibly do with no money, no prospects, no car,
no sidewalks, no jobs and no busses.

Todd called me up the following Monday and tried to
guilt me. As a good person, I felt bad because we were
clearly not going to be friends after something like
this so I let him have his say, but he brought it on
himself.

He used to have a kill phrase he liked to use when
gaming or arguing. It was "you're just mad because
you're losing." It was the funniest thing in the world
to him to say that to someone just to piss them off
a little bit more than they already were. He said
that to me once when we were playing Space Hulk, a board game
with a rulebook it took an hour to read. I know, because he
insisted on reading the entire rulebook to me right
before playing my first game. Oh, that was helful.
He was a sadistic little fuck that way. It all stemmed from his
"I can't believe I used to think you were cool" mental disorder.

I strongly considered using it on him when he called me
up the Monday after my move. I didn't. For me, it was the
end of a long, sick and twisted friendship with a guy who
used to do the most wicked things he could do just to score
points on some stupid "purity test" that made the rounds one
year. He once had group sex and gave a girl a pearl necklace
in his parents' living room while they were asleep upstairs just
to score points on that test. I don't doubt he would have screwed
a goat, too, that was on the list as well. He is no doubt a Republican
today. He confessed to me once, I think I really am a racist.
No shit? I wasn't surprised.

He changed his name when he got married to a
woman named Dark . He is now legally named Todd
Dark-Fox. Can you believe that shit? What a fuck.

Mark said of him, "Well he always did want to be a player
character."

That is true and funny if you ever played D&D.

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